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The husband-and-wife team started CityMile, a software model for usage-based car insurance, similar to Progressive's Snapshot. The product would allow insurance companies and their customers to capture data on driver behavior.

"It's a really cool thing, because once you have a monitoring device in a vehicle ... it changes their behavior behind the wheel," Jason Sprenger said.

CityMile was one of the teams in the Global Insurance Accelerator's first class, which wrapped up at the end of last month.

They left Brazil's warmth for Iowa's cold, he said, to see if their idea was viable.

"For us, (focus) was important. Just to try and get a leg up and understand if what we were working on was feasible," he said.

CityMile is also working on a two-pronged business approach. While Jason — originally from Milwaukee's suburbs — focuses on the U.S. market, Georgia can take Brazil.

Here's some more about CityMile:

Team: Jason and Georgia Sprenger

From: Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

CityMile is developing usage-based car insurance software for small and medium companies.

Makes money by charging per-user fees.

What they got out of the accelerator: Focus.

After demo day, what's next: Hiring tech talent with a "vested interest." "If something breaks at 11 p.m., I want to know that they are there to fix it," Jason Sprenger said.

The biggest challenge: Getting up to speed.

"To really try and get up to speed and become an expert in what your company does is tough, especially when you're getting thrown in front of a bunch of insurance execs," he said. "You want to pick up their lingo, you want to figure out their verbiage, their terminology, the way that they think."

About the accelerator

The Global Insurance Accelerator is based in Des Moines and took six startup teams through 100 days of fast-track business development and mentorship. Each team received $40,000 in seed funding, and the accelerator received a stake in each startup. The first class graduated May 27.